Forever Friends
by Wyltk
Summary: Helga and Phoebe's friendship is highly underrated, at least in my opinion. I wanted to put something up that would show my take on this highly unique friendship. Because everyone deserves a best friend.


And again I'm back with another Hey Arnold fic. Inspiration is such a fickle thing. Oh well! Hope you all enjoy this. It came to me on reading all these fics that were centered around Arnolds and Helga's relationship.  
  
It seemed Helga and Phoebe's friendship was underrated in all of them. Sometimes Phoebe didn't like her at all, or grew too old for her, or even was still her friend but seemed more like something to keep the plot going. So I wrote this! This is my take on Helga and Phoebe's friendship.  
  
SHOUT OUT TO: All my reviews and especially, Ms. Prongs *grins*, Briana Luvsfutballhead, and Laurel. All of whom happen to sport my most favorite reviews.  
  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Hey Arnold. Ain't it a cryin' shame? Don't sue me I'm not worth your time nor your money.  
  
Forever Friends  
  
By Wyltk  
  
  
  
Pheeb's just told me. She sent in her application four months ago and she just now tells me she sent it in and was accepted. She's leaving for Harvard in one week. One week and then she will be gone to law school to become one of the best lawyers the US has seen.  
  
Pheeb's has been my best friend for years. And I mean years. I thought she had told me everything important. I've told her everything important. Well most of everything. I do understand why she didn't, it hurts, but I do understand. You don't stick with someone 12 years and not learn a thing or two about their personalities.  
  
I think she was afraid she wouldn't get in. That's my personal opinion of course but I'm pretty sure I'm right. It's disappointing though. I have a week to sum up our entire friendship really not even that. How can anyone sum up 12 years in one week?  
  
~*~  
  
The small half-Asian first grader went over to her cubby hole and got out her lunch. Most of the other kids had already gotten theirs and we're eating steadily. However I noticed she had finished the letters she had been writing before going over to get her lunch.  
  
Her short black hair was left down today and she was looking around for a place to sit in the crowded lunch room. Finally she spotted the only empty seat right next to me. Sighing, I set my head down on the table and hoped she wouldn't bother me.  
  
I stared hungrily through my fingers at her lunch. Mom had forgotten mine today and I couldn't get her to make me one. The girl across from me seemed to have caught me looking. Glaring I turned my head away.  
  
"Aren't you going to get your lunch?" the girl asked sweetly, smiling.  
  
"No." I answered angry that her parents actually remembered her lunch.  
  
"Why not?" she pried her eyes looking me over curiously. Though she seemed to have noticed I was mad because she was quietly fidgeting.  
  
"Forgot." I mumble half hoping she won't hear me and think I was ignoring her.  
  
"But your mom-"  
  
"Was busy this morning."  
  
"Oh," she looked down at her own lunch. A sandwitch cut in half with a apple and a pear. One of the fruits was probably for the snack time we got if we were extra good.  
  
"You can have some of mine." She said smiling at me and pushing half of her sandwitch and her apple towards me.  
  
"Thank you," I smiled at her, "My name's Helga."  
  
"My name's Phoebe."  
  
~*~  
  
I looked around my room and walked over to my book shelf that I had moved out of my closet a few years back. I've become pretty organized over the years. Smiling to myself, I skipped the first two shelves. The first has everything I have ever written: poems, short stories, unfinished novels, and some other stuff I have.  
  
The next shelf is full of photo albums labeled and sorted by what they contained. One of the albums, Friends, is cover with different patches of material. The friends' album is thick and holds pictures of the entire gang all the way from PS 118.  
  
And then there is Best Friends which contains pictures of Pheebs, Arnold, Gerald, and me. Most of the time it's only one or two of us together. Most people don't consider Gerald and I friends but we are, in a weird sort of way. It's almost like a friend of a friend thing but then at the same time it's not. He always jokes with me and I reply sarcastically, one or both of us storm off and a few hours later we're eating ice cream and laughing hysterically. And Arnold and I? Our relationship has changed drastically over the years.  
  
My eyes passed over the purple cover of the Best Friends and the smallest albums black cover. The smallest being Family, though, just as sweet as the others. Finally getting to the bottom of the shelve I pulled out the brightly decorated shoe box and placed it on my bed hopping up to sit down beside the box. Lifting the lid I smiled at the pictures of my smiling friends. I placed all the duplicates and some of the pictures that just didn't fit anywhere in here.  
  
An invitation to Pheeb's going away party had arrived via e-mail. I'm not sure I want to go though that. It's not that it's going to be a terrible party it's just I've never been good at good byes. To emotional for my taste. And it's pretty hard to not be emotional when your friend for 12 years is leaving. And anyways I've decided to leave the day of her party. I'm not sure I'm going to tell her I'm going. I really want to leave quietly.  
  
Anyway, she'll be leaving the very next day and it would be better if I was already gone. After all once she makes it to Harvard with Gerald everyone will forget Helga G. Pataki. So that's decided, I'll meet up with her tonight at the ice cream parlor. And I'll say a quick good bye for some closure, though I'm not telling her I'm leaving, and then that's it. I'll just disappear off into the sunset like any good heroine from an old western. And everyone will forget I ever existed.  
  
~*~  
  
"Helga, are you alright?" Phoebe asked reaching down a hand to help her friend off the unforgiving cement floors in the dark alley.  
  
"Fine. I'm fine Pheebs." She waved the hand away and stood up. But her cold attitude had no effect on her best friend who grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the alley way.  
  
"Come on, we'll go get some ice cream and you can tell me what happened." Phoebe said knowing full well Arnold had told everyone he hated Helga, and that was the whole problem.  
  
"But-Gerald. You said you had a date with Gerald at two."  
  
"He can wait for a little while." Phoebe said smiling at Helga who had turned to regard her with surprised eyes.  
  
~*~  
  
I folded the last crease to the wrapping paper down gently placing a piece of tape in the middle. I took the crème envelope with Phoebe's name written neatly on the front. Holding it up to the dark blue paper I place one last piece of tape to keep it there and stepped back.  
  
I looked over the gift and smiled to myself. I had firm instructions in the letter, which I knew Phoebe would open first, that her gift wasn't to be open until she was on the air plane.  
  
I hope Pheebs won't be too upset with me after she reads my note. But it's better this way. Better for the both of us. I would drag her down. I've dragged her down since I was little. I always made her feel worthless. I never meant to and I think she realized that. But I know it still hurts her. It will be easier for her to go off to college without me. She can do so much better there with new friends that are nice to her.  
  
~*~  
  
"I just don't understand why you even care about Pataki! It's not like she's ever nice to you!" Gerald said barely controlling his temper as their fight over Helga came to a peak.  
  
"Why do you hang around Arnold?" asked Phoebe her shaking hands betraying her calm demeanor.  
  
That threw Gerald for a loop. But he answered just the same, "Because he's my friend."  
  
"Well she's my friend! Don't make me choose between the two of you Gerald." Her bright eyes pleaded with him to understand.  
  
"I'm not going to do that Phoebe. I just don't understand why you even want to be her friend." Gerald said the anger fading.  
  
"She's so different then what you think. I just wish you could see the same girl I see." said Phoebe. She kissed Gerald's cheek and left the hall way oblivious to her eavesdropping friend.  
  
~*~  
  
I've finally finished! I'm all ready to leave: everything's packed, all my scholarship money is carefully hidden, and I dropped off my gift with Pheeb's parents minutes ago. They had promised to give it to her as soon as she came home.  
  
Now all that's really left for me is to get in my small pink Volts Wagon and hit the road. I looked up at the high noon sun and had the sudden urge to run back to my empty room and curl up on my bare mattress. But I can't do that. I'm a Pataki after all. We don't show our fear.  
  
Shaking my head out of my thoughts I realized I was getting quite a few strange looks just standing there holding the handle to my car door. Smiling sheepishly I open the door and slip inside the cool interior. Turning the car on I start the engine and drive past the neighborhood that I had lived in since I was born.  
  
As I started towards the high way I took one last look around my old stomping grounds. I passed the park and smiled at the legends that used to scare me senseless, though I refused to let anyone know that.  
  
Driving past Gerald's Field I slowed down watching my old team mates play one last game together. I had half a mind to join them. Maybe just one catch. Smiling I parked my car and slipped behind Arnold watching the other players snicker.  
  
"STRIKE ONE!" Arnold screeched and jumped missing the ball that fell easily into my hand. I tossed it back to Herald as the team started to laugh. Arnold looked at me reproachfully his eyes sparkling with amusement.  
  
"Still the same after all these years eh Helga?" he asked and I nodded.  
  
"Just wanted to have one last catch." I smiled and waved to the rest of the team and started towards my car. Arnold yelled something and caught up with me.  
  
"Are you leaving?"  
  
"Yea, heading for the big wide world of more school work."  
  
Arnold laughed deeply continuing the slow gait they had taken up. "Your missing Phoebe's party then?"  
  
"Yea."  
  
They walked in silence until they got to her care and he suddenly grabbed out a piece of paper from his pocket.  
  
"This is my address. Promise you'll write." He gave me a pleading glance and I nodded dumbly, surprised he would actually think enough of me to give me the small slip of paper I was clutching tightly in my hand.  
  
"Promise." Taking a deep breath I dug around for a piece of paper and wrote down my college's address, handing him the slip of paper with a small smile.  
  
"In four years we're meeting back here. June 6th our graduation date. Don't forget alright?"  
  
"If I do I'm sure you'll find someway to remind me."  
  
He smiled and I couldn't help but wrap my arms around him in a small hug. He hugged back before pulling away with a confused smile. "What was that for?"  
  
"For being you. For being you Arnold." The rest of the team catcalled and I glared at them all slipping into my car and starting the engine. I started to drive off and noticed them waving. Smiling I lowered the window waving and with a loud yell announced.  
  
"CRIMNEY, YOU ARE ALL GOING TO MEET THE FIVE AVENGERS WHEN I SEE YOU NEXT!"  
  
~*~  
  
I smiled watching out the window of the plane as it left the air port. I could still see the distant figures of my friends and family waving. I wiped away the small tear that had escaped my dark eyes and took a deep breath.  
  
I opened my small carry on and instead of the book I was looking for felt a small parcel. Smiling, I brought it out and unwrapped it. It was interesting of Helga to make me wait. Usually she couldn't wait. Then again it was also like her to soften a blow she had dealt. And it had been a big blow when she had left without telling me.  
  
I ran my hands over the black cover which in gold writing said, simply, Best Friends. Opening the cover my eyes ran past the first page smiling at the picture staring back at me.  
  
It was a funny picture with all the kids together when they were around 12. Helga was smiling at me while lowering her customary spit ball straw quickly. Arnold had turned around with a hand to the back of his head and was smiling at her in amusement while finishing up "the" handshake with Gerald. Harold had shoved Eugene and he had spilt a drink of some sort all over Rhonda's new clothes. The others were in similar poses and somehow it fit the entire class better then the class picture that year.  
  
I smiled and turned to the next page reading the quote and feeling my eyes tear up at the sight of Helga and I dressed up as little old ladies for a class project. More pictures and quotes came along with other things that meant something to the both of us. Finally I turned to the last page and began to read.  
  
"Pheebs,  
  
I'm so glad that you became my friend back in first grade. That you were always there and always ready to help in any way you could. I may not be the nicest person in the world and I know sometimes I never actually treated you as a real friend, but you always were and always will be by BEST friend. If you ever need anything you know who to ask. I'll be here for you forever.  
  
Forever Friends, Helga G. Pataki"  
  
  
  
  
  
AN: I'm afraid my characters aren't totally in character but I do hope you will all ignore my character flaws. /Get it? Character flaws? *pouts* Well I thought it was funny!/ Ignore my errors and be happy I rewrite my stuff. /Trust me the small error's in here are nothing compared to the first draft/  
  
Wyltk  
  
@}-------- Thornless Roses for those who review ',',',',',',',', Thorns for those who don't 


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